RI connection to HIV prevention study

Providence, RI – By MEGAN HALL A Brown University professor is one of the lead researchers in a study that shows the possibility of preventing HIV with a pill.

Dr. Ken Mayer, a Brown professor and a physician at The Miriam Hospital, ran the Boston site for a study which showed a 44% reduction in HIV contraction among men who received daily antiretroviral drugs.

Mayer says the results were even better when study subjects remembered to take the medication regularly- up to around a 90% success rate.

"When people are adherent, there's a strong protective effect," Mayer says. "Probably not a 100 percent. But certainly the strongest preventive effect we've seen with any bio medical intervention to date."

Mayer says this finding is a potential game changer in the field of HIV prevention. He says the daily medications would be most effective for individuals who are at a high risk of contracting the virus, and if implemented effectively, the pills could prevent several tens of thousands of new HIV cases a year in the United States.

More details Take a look at the study in the New England Journal of Medicine here

Do you have insight or expertise on this topic? Please email us, we'd like to hear from you. news@wrni.org.